Monthly Archives: March 2017

The IRA campaign, the ‘peace process’ and the working class The death of Martin McGuinness has been marked by a genuine outpouring of grief in Catholic areas. His funeral became a celebration of a life of struggle and the tens of thousands who attended clearly agree with Gerry Adams that he was a “freedom fighter”, not a “terrorist”. Not all ...

By Daniel Waldron The snap Northern Ireland Assembly election took place in the aftermath of the ‘cash for ash’ scandal which emerged in December, the most recent in a series of debacles which left Stormont – and particularly the DUP – shrouded in a smog of incompetence and corruption. After 10 years of DUP / Sinn Féin-led government characterised by ...

By Philip Stott, Socialist Party Scotland The Scottish parliament will vote next week in favour of triggering a second independence referendum. With a pro-independence majority in the parliament among MSPs the vote is a formality. The exact timing of the referendum is not clear. Nicola Sturgeon has said that a new indyref should take place either in the autumn of ...

The heinous targeting of Maurice McCabe and other Garda whistle blowers and the targeting of the Jobstown protestors by the state are two sides of the same coin. On one side a sinister smear campaign waged to silence McCabe and others by the top echelons of the Garda; in collusion with state agencies, the media and the political establishment. On ...

By Cillian Gillespie It would appear that the scandal surrounding the smearing of Maurice McCabe has drastically undermined the fate of this already weak Fine Gael minority government. The possibility of an election before the end of 2017 has increased substantially. Such an election takes place against the backdrop of increasing industrial unrest, as it is clear that the expectations ...

By Fiona O’Loughlin “On the morning of 23 February, one could hear women’s voices in the lane which the windows of our department overlooked: ‘Down with the war! Down with the high prices! Down with hunger! Bread for the workers!’ Myself and several comrades were at the windows in a flash…The gates of No.1 Bol’shaya Sampsion’evskaya manufactura were wide open… ...

By James McCabe The depraved witch-hunt against Garda whistleblower, Maurice McCabe, by a cabal of senior level Gardaí in revenge for exposing corruption within the force sparked such mass revulsion that it threatened to bring down the government. Following other recent revelations of corruption, illegal phone-tapping and politically motivated spying by Gardaí, the establishment is keen to divert attention away ...

By Eleni Vetsika It has been almost a year since very alarming figures regarding a serious hike in HIV diagnoses in Ireland have hit the news, yet little –if anything- has been done to tackle the situation. According to an HSE report published last year, there was a 30% increase in the rate of HIV diagnosis in 2015. Although this ...

The “cancer gap” that exists between disadvantaged and well-off communities is a case in point. A recent report found that the death rate from cancer in two areas of Dublin West differ drastically. Dr. Robert O’Connor speaking at The University of Limerick said “The death rate from cancer in Mulhuddart is nearly three times that in Castleknock even though they ...

By Manus Lenihan The Maurice McCabe scandal has been another grim reminder that we don’t have a “free press” (in the true sense of the word) here in Ireland. Rather we have a media that in general has an overly-cosy relationship with the establishment. With the McCabe scandal, it’s clear that big sections of the media cooperated with the mafia-style ...